: Scripting Change: the Role of Individuals and Collectives in System-Level Transitions

Course goals

After completing this course, students are able to:

• understand and apply basic concepts regarding (complex) systems and transitions;
• reflect on their own role and experiences in complex systems;
• create practical ways of stimulating system change and reflect on practical and ethical dilemmas that arise during implementation.

Content

Many of today’s problems in society are systemic in nature: capitalist systems that exploit the earth, health care systems that become unaffordable, large shortages on the housing market, high prevalence rates of interpersonal violence in sports, limited opportunities for people with impairments due to ableism, etc.
These problems seem structural, ingrained in institutions, and beyond individual’s control. Nevertheless, we as collectives and individuals are a part of them and can contribute to change, but how?

This course equips you with the knowledge necessary to comprehend, engage with, and actively contribute to system-level transition processes. It enriches your theoretical understanding of social systems and transitions, cultivates your reflective knowledge on positioning yourself within systemic transitions, and hones practical skills for playing an active role in effecting positive change. While the conventional viewpoint posits that individuals and their behaviors are largely predetermined by the context they live in, recent advancements in the study of social transformations challenge this perspective. Scholars highlight the pivotal role of individuals and collectives as agents of change, collaboratively influencing institutions and systems. Ultimately, this course guides you in embracing your capacity as ‘change agent’, both within smaller units like families and friends, and on a broader scale within organisations and institutions such as companies and governments, fostering collective efforts to propel societal transitions.
The course will not only reflect on the influence individuals have on society, but also on the role collectives play in system-level transitions.

To accommodate your learning curve as active agents in societal transitions, we aim to teach you about the following three elements:
 

1. systems thinking: we teach the main characteristics of (complex) systems, the relation between individual behavior, collective behavior and system outcomes, and the role path-dependency plays in complex systems. You also learn about system transitions, the development of new practices and the breakdown of old structures. This first element of the course contributes to students’ analytical understanding of complex systems, transition management, and societal change.

 

2. You will reflect on your own role in complex systems and societal transitions. In the course you actively work on a societal transition. This could for example, be the climate crisis or the integrity crisis sports is facing, but also a different one. You write an individual reflection on your own role in this system, the collectives of which you are part, how you contribute to system’s outcomes (positive or negative), what feelings your positioning evokes, and what your desires are for changes in the system. We encourage students to include autobiographical information in this reflection.

 

3. You work practically on change in the system you are part of and which you want to influence. You choose a form of action, take the first steps of execution, and reflect on the practical and ethical dilemmas which arose during implementation. The actions can have various forms, e.g., speaking up about unsafe culture in sports club, participating in demonstrations, interviewing voters of radically different political parties or social classes, changing consumer behavior, writing an opinion article, setting up a branding campaign, etc. It is important the action injects tension in the respective system and is somehow contrary to dominant system rules.

Note for exchange students
Resits may be scheduled after the end of the teaching period. Please consider this when planning your departure from the Netherlands. If in doubt, please ask the course coordinator when the resit is scheduled.